Page 70 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

“A favor,” he says. “At a time and place of my choosing.”

“I can’t promise that. You could ask for anything.”

He shrugs. “Good luck taking back your capital.”

Of course. He wouldn’t make things easy. Then again, if it were me in his shoes, I’d ask for the same. “Fine,” I say. “But nothing... untoward.”

“I wouldn’t dare.” Musa shakes my hand with only mildly exaggerated solemnity. “In fact, I’ll offer you a little tidbit right now. Captain Avitas Harper is on his way here. He’s in the northwest corridor, passing that very ugly statue of a yak, and moving rather quickly.”

“How—” I know how he does it. Still, the specificity is uncanny.

“Ten seconds,” Musa murmurs. “Eight—six—”

I stride swiftly away, wincing at the pain lancing up my leg. But I’m not fast enough.

“Blood Shrike,” Harper calls in a voice that I cannot ignore. I curse Musa as he walks off, laughing quietly.

“Harper,” I say. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Quin is, would you?” I keep walking through the dark stone halls of the keep, fast enough that he has to jog to catch up. I am lightheaded—despite my swift healing, I’m not recovered from what happened in Antium. “I need to ask him if—”

Harper steps in front of me, grabs my hand, and pulls me into a side hallway with a force that surprises me.

“I know you’re angry at me,” he says. “Maybe I deserve it. But you’re also angry at yourself. And you shouldn’t be. Faris—”

“Faris knew what he was doing.” I yank my hand back, and the fleetinghurt in Harper’s expression makes me look down. “Faris was a soldier. Faris gave me a fighting chance.”

“But you’re still angry,” Harper says softly.

“And why shouldn’t I be,” I snarl at him. “You know what they’re doing to us in that city. The city I lost, Harper. The city I let Keris betray—”

“You didn’t—”

“It was so quiet,” I say. “All our people cowering because they are desperately afraid. Not of death or torture. They’re too strong for that. No, they’re afraid of being forgotten, Harper.”

Harper sighs, and it feels like he can see right into me, into those moments I mourned Faris, those moments I spent staring into the eyes of a child’s skull, thinking death had finally come.

He steps near enough that I can smell the cinnamon and cedar of his skin, the steel at his waist. Snow has melted in his black hair, cut so close that it looks like the feathers of a raven.

“That is a terrible thing, Shrike,” he says. “But it’s not why you’re angry. Tell me why you’re angry.”

That hollowness that has gnawed at me since waking expands, and I cannot stop it. I feel every wound. Every scar.

“When I was in the tunnels,” I say, “and I thought I was going to die, I thought about you.”

Though people pass us, no one looks twice. All they see is the Blood Shrike standing with her second. A minute passes. Still, he waits.

“It might have been you with me,” I finally whisper. “Instead of Faris. But it wasn’t. And when he stayed back because there were too many Karkauns, I—” My eyes burn. Curse the Nightbringer for taking my mask. In this moment, I would have drawn strength from it.

“I’ve known him all my life, Harper. We survived Blackcliff together. Skies, he tried to kill me once or twice when we were Fivers. But when I was crawling through that tunnel, when I knew he was fighting and dying for me, all I could think was that I was so thankful it wasn’t you up there. Because if it had been, we’d have died together.”

I step back from him now, and tears threaten. “But it wasn’t you,” I go on. “So Faris died alone. Now I have Paters to appease, and an army to gather, and an invasion to plan. I have an Empire to reclaim. But I am afraid of everything I might lose. So yes, Harper. I am angry. Wouldn’t you be?”

My eyes are full so I cannot see his expression. I think he reaches for me, but this time, when I walk away, he doesn’t follow. Just as well. Far to the west, my people suffer under the violent rulership of Grímarr. I failed them. I let that bastard sack our capital. I do not have time to agonize over Harper, or to ponder how much it cost me to tell him the truth. I do not have time to feel.

I have a city to take.

XXIX:The Nightbringer

For centuries, humans were enough. I welcomed those who came to the Forest of Dusk with love, as Mauth asked me to. It was no chore, for many were lost, and longing to be found, healed, and passed on to a kinder place.

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